Finding Tsoukka (C1922)

I have been reading the very interesting dissertation by Dr. Catherine Parker about bronze age Arcadia and checking her list of sites against mine.  In the course of this I came across her discussion of the site of Tsoukka (C1922) which is in Arcadia's Pheneos valley.  Tsoukka is an MH site.  I positioned it somewhat informally at the small country crossroads here: 37.889404° N 22.293383° E, basing this on the large-scale map in Zavadil [2006], with an accuracy parameter of 'Unknown' and I confess that I didn't think too much more about it.  Then I came across Dr. Parker's discussion which tells us that the discovery of Tsoukka included apsidal houses.  Because I don't have access to the original discoverer's articles (Erath [1999] and Erath [2000]) I had not known about the houses.  

Apsidal houses always get my attention.   I have certain ... er ... hypotheses about such structures and this was too good to let go.  It became my number one priority to identify exactly where these houses are located.   The only clue I had was a photograph taken by Dr. Parker.  I reproduce it here:

Courtesy of Dr. Catherine Parker.  All rights reserved to creator.

Can we work with what we have?  I think so.  We're looking for a road or a footpath which is flanked by two poles.  Behind the poles is a tree.  The apsidal house (or its entrance) is in the foreground and marked by the several stones.

It's not much to go on.  Can we find such a combination of features?   Here's what the territory actually looks like:

In the above aerial photo from Google Earth we see the east end of the hill of Tsoukka along with the little rise at its foot (center with the feature marker).  The apsidal  houses are somewhere on this map among this interlace of country roads.

I began by assuming that the 'path' in Parker's photograph was really one of these roads and, thank heaven!, Google Street View is available for nearly all these roads.  I traversed the road coming in from the north: nothing.  I then tried the road running NE to SW.  This road is lined by a single file of telephone poles except for one place.  Here it is:

Can these be the same two poles that we see in Dr. Parker's photograph?  I tried to reproduce her view in Google Earth:

In the foreground of this picture we see some stones which look quite like those in Dr. Parker's photo .... and here's a better view of the famous tree behind the poles:

When we look back from the double poles in the direction from which Dr. Parker's picture was taken we see this:

The terrace on which the apsidal houses are located is here:

Here's what it looks like from directly above:

The 'x' marks the place from which Dr. Parker's picture was taken.

And another view:

In this picture I tried to recreate the exact angle of Dr. Parker's photograph with the blue line.  The place from which the  picture was taken would be at the tip of the white arrow by the apsidal houses.


Well, to wrap it all up, the Mycenaean Atlas Project DB now has a new location for Tsoukkas (C1922).  It is here:

     Decimal:   37.888726° N          22.290945° E
     DMS:       37° 53' 19.414" N     22° 17' 27.402" E     
     W3W: geared.braces.squarely
     UTM:       34 S   613515 m E   4194254 m N

     GGRS87:    349568 m E    4194558 m N


It will be a couple of days before I update the DB.  However, it should be corrected by 8/23/2018.

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Some remarks on the Mycenaean Atlas Project database:

Many researchers in the social sciences use some product like Microsoft's Excel to create a 'DB'.  This is fine; it's what is generally referred to as a 'flat file'.  That is, a single table representation of your data of interest.

The Mycenaean Atlas database, on the other hand, is a relational database with several tables that was built using MySQL.  Dumps of this DB are available but you need MySQL (or similar) and a knowledge of Structured Query Language (SQL) to run it.  Otherwise it doesn't make much sense to ask for it.  But If you'd like to have a copy of the Mycenaean Atlas database anyway then e-mail me and tell me about your project.  

And remember that useful .kml and/or .csv files can be generated directly from all the windows (including the new reports pages) of the website helladic.info   Try it out!   I'm also willing to generate custom .csv or .kml files from the atlas if you need something specific.

BIBLIO

Erath [2000]:  Gabriel Erath, "Neolithische und bronzezeitliche Keramik aus dem Becken von Pheneos in Arkadien", in F. BLAKOLMER (ed.), Österreichische Forschungen zur Ägäischen Bronzezeit 1998. Akten der Tagung am Institut für Klassische Archäologie der Universität Wien, 2.-3. Mai 1998 (2000), p. 111-118, esp. 114, fig. 6. 

Erath [1999]:  Gabriel Erath, "Archäologische Funde im Becken von Pheneos", in K. TAUSEND (ed.), Pheneos und Lousoi.  Untersuchungen zu Geschichte und Topographie Nordostarkadiens (1999), p. 199-237, Taf. 4, 5

Mazarakis-Ainian [2009]:  Alexander Mazarakis-Ainian, From Ruler's Dwellings to Temples; Architecture, Religion and Society in Early Iron Age Greece (1100-700 B.C.).  Paul Åströms Förlag. Jonsered, Sweden.  1997.

Parker [2008]: Catherine Parker, Arkadia in Transition: Exploring Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Human Landscapes. Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the University of Birmingham. Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, School of Historical Studies.  The University of Birmingham, January 2008.

Philippa-Touchais et al. [2006]: Mesohelladika; La Grèce continentale au Bronze Moyen.  Actes du colloque international organisé par L'École Française d'Athènes en collaboration avec l'American School of Classical Studies at Athens et le Netherlands Institute in Athens, Athènes, 8-12 mars 2006.  Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique Supplement no. 52.

Zavadil [2006]:   Michaela Zavadil, The Peloponnese in the Middle Bronze Age: An Overview', in Philippa-Touchais et al. [2006], pp. 151-163. 2006., p. 161.

The Missing Tholos of Mandhra (C124)

PHILLY:  …for when I was a young lad there was a graveyard 

beyond the house with the remnants of a man who had thighs 

as long as your arm. He was a horrid man, I'm telling you, 

and there was many a fine Sunday I'd put him together for 

fun, and he with shiny bones, you wouldn't meet the like 

of these days in the cities of the world.

Playboy of the Western World

J.M. Synge

1907

One can appreciate Philly’s enthusiasm for osteoarchaeology but not all of us are fortunate enough to have our graves ready to hand.  A case in point is the tholos tomb in the town of Mandhra which, though visible in the 1950’s, has now gone missing.

Mandhra is a semi-isolated village on the very west edge of the Stenyklaros plain; itself an extension to the north of Messenia’s Pamisos valley.

It appears that sometime in the late 1920’s Natan Valman discovered two domed tombs in the vicinity of this town and this was reported in the RE[1].

In the late 1950’s it seems that one of these domed tombs (C124) was located by Simpson and McDonald about 20 m. to the SW of the church of Ayios Yeoryios in Mandhra.  They reported their find in the first of a series of articles on prehistoric sites in Messenia.[2]  This is what they said.

"A collapsed tholos tomb in the hamlet of Mandhra which is ca. 1 km. N-NE of Elektra village.  The whole area was formerly called Gliata.  There are two springs in the larger village.  The tomb is located ca. 20 m. S-W of the church of Ayios Georgios.  The circle of stones is clear, as is also the line of the dromos which faces 85°.  The diameter is ca. 13 m. and the length of the dromos is 11 m.  A large well was built nearby with stones from the tomb, but there was apparently no attempt to penetrate very deeply.

  

This is probably one of the two "Kuppelgrabe bei Gliata" which Karo (RE Suppl. VI, 607) lists as a notification by letter from Valmin.  Villagers say ancient walls were discovered when digging foundations for a house ca. 20 m. north of the spring called Krounovrisi in Elektra village.  Quite possibly there was a habitation site in this area."

So.  In the late 1950’s the circle of the stone tomb was visible along with its dromos whose orientation was still discoverable.

Just a few years later they revisited the site of Mandhra.  This time their attention was on a putative habitation about 100 m. south of the tholos.  At this time they do not say anything more about the condition of the tholos itself.[3]

As late as the mid-1960’s, then, the tholos was still identifiable along with its dromos.  What remains of it now?  Time to go to the map.  

First up is McDonald and Simpson's own map:

Fig. 1  The map of the upper Pamisos according to Mcdonald and Simpson

This map shows the whole upper Pamisos valley.  I have circled Mandhra and (extra information) I drew arrows to the perennial springs which are otherwise hard to see.  Now let's look at the modern village of Mandhra.  Here is a close-up of the church in question and the supposed location of our domed tomb or tholos.

Fig. 2.  From 2013.  Church of Ayios Yeoryios of Mandhra along with general area of the tholos tomb.

And in this next picture I've tried to reproduce what McDonald and Simpson claim to have seen:

Fig. 3.  An attempt to model what McDonald and Simpson saw.

The yellow circle is of 20 m. radius and is centered on the SW corner of the church at the yellow push pin.  The red circle is 13 m. in diameter; I have shown a dromos of 11 m. in length and oriented at about 85°.  Twenty meters to the SW of this church, and inside my red circle,  you can plainly see a pile of rubble which is obviously the location of our tholos tomb.  

Not so fast, brother.  

First of all this photo was taken in November of 2013.  In a GE photo from 2003, ten years earlier, we can see that there is nothing whatsoever in that corner.

Fig 4. From 2003.  Nothing in the corner 20 m. SW of the church.

 And so that must mean that between the mid-1960's and 2003 whatever was visible to McDonald and Simpson had disappeared.  The picture from 2013 shows a brand new pile of rubble shoved off into that corner.  It is not possible to connect this rubble to any tholos tomb.  In a picture from Google Street View taken in 2011 we can see that very corner occupied by palm fronds from the palm trees which are just to the east and in front of the church.

Fig. 5.  December 2011.  Nothing in the corner but dried-up palm fronds.

In another view also taken at the same time, in 2011, we see a pile of rubble that has been bull-dozed into the N corner of the field.

Fig 6.  The general view of the field in 2011 with mysterious pile of rubble in NW corner.

What does that SE corner of the field (the corner with the palm fronds) look like today?  I was very fortunate to receive this photo, which was taken just a few days ago, from a correspondent in Greece.  According to him there is nothing in that corner except a sandbag.  Here it is:

Fig. 7.  The SE corner of the field with merely a sandbag.  Taken 4/2017.  All rights reserved.

Here's another view, taken at the same time, looking roughly N:

Fig. 8.  Same field looking NNE.
Taken 4/2017.   All rights reserved.

A structure has been added to the W of the church.  In preparing that structure some rubble was bull-dozed into the NW corner of the field.  You can see it in fig. 8.

Let's see if we can come up with a time-line for our tholos:

a. 1959: Tholos and dromos visible in SE corner

b. mid 1960's: Tholos and dromos still visible in SE corner (or, at least, not reported missing.)

c. 2003: Nothing visible in SE corner or anywhere else on the field.

d. 2011: SE corner is swept bare except for some dried palm fronds; a pile of rubble is visible at NW end of the field.

e.  2013: Large pile of stone and rubble visible in the SE corner

f.  2017: SE corner contains a single sandbag; large pile of rubble visible in NW corner of the field near a new structure.

Above, in fig. 3, I tried to model what I thought McDonald and Simpson described.  Perhaps what was originally seen was located somewhere else in that field.  It might have looked more like this:

Fig. 9.  An alternative idea for the former location of C124.

Whatever it looked like it was a major feature and would have dominated that space.  I emphasize that Simpson and McDonald saw both the circle and the dromos clearly enough to measure both.  Too bad it's now lost.  Perhaps fragments from it exist in the new rubble pile at the NW corner of this field which you can see in the background of fig. 8.

Here's a close-up:

Fig. 10.  The 'recent' bulldozed rubble pile at Mandhra.
Taken 4/2017.    All rights reserved.

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Status of the Mycenaean Atlas Project

Currently prototyping an alpha online version of the Atlas.  I'm probably about two months away from making it available.

I've recently added twenty-four locations in the area of the Skourta plain (Farinetti [2009]), some eighty points in and around central Athens (Mountjoy, [2005]), and about forty points in Cyprus (van Wijngaarden [2002]).

Anyone who would like to have a copy of the MAP database can send an e-mail to bobconsoli 'at' gmail.com or leave a comment on any of my posts.  

A large (about 2400 page) .pdf document which describes the entire database is available for the asking.

To run the MAP database requires a SQL server running on your desktop computer.   MySQL is such a server and it is powerful, industry-standard, and free.  

I can and will make .kml or .kmz files, which can be opened directly in Google Earth, available to those who would like them.  

I can also create .csv files for people who would like to import Mycenaean Atlas Project data into Google Earth but would like it in tabular form.

If you like these posts then please follow me on Twitter (Squinchpix) or on Google+   (Robert Consoli)

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Footnotes

[1] Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Supplemental Volume VI, col. 607. (I cannot find this online and have not consulted it).

[2] McDonald and Simpson [1961], p. 234.   In Boyd[2001] 212.  Ålin speaks of this tholos as 'collapsed', 'eingestürztes' in Ålin [1962] 79.  

In Zavadil [2012] 493-4.   Dr. Zavadil suggests that the stones may have been reused in a nearby well:

"Eine zerstörte Tholos in der Flur Chasna westlich des Dorfes Mandra wurde erstmals 1961 von W. A. McDonald und R. Hope Simpson erwähnt. 1  Das Grab, dessen Dromos sich nach Osten öffnete, lag etwa 20 m südwestlich der dem Ag. Georgios geweihten Kirche. Die unteren Schichten der Tholos dürften damals noch erhalten gewesen sein; einige Steine ihres Mauerwerks hatte man für die Errichtung einer nahegelegenen Brunneneinfassung verwendet."

"A destroyed Tholos in the Chasna region west of Mandra village was first mentioned in 1961 by W. A. McDonald and R. Hope Simpson.   The tomb, whose dromos opened to the east, lay about 20 m southwest of the church dedicated to Ag. Georgios. The lower courses of the Tholos may have been preserved at that time;  some of the masonry (einige Steine ihres Mauerwerks) had been used for the construction of a nearby well surround (Brunneneinfassung)."

There is definitely a new well in the SW corner of the church forecourt (at 37.310126° N, 21.923186° E), only a few meters away from where the tholos would have been.  

Here is a picture from 2017 (an enlargement of fig. 7) that shows the new well in that corner:

Fig.. 11.  The new well.  I blurred this slightly to smooth out some annoying jpeg artifacts.
The new well is plainly visible.
All rights reserved.

But this well dates from after 2011 because figures 5 and 6 (above) from that period do not show it.  I cannot tell from the 2013 photo (fig. 9) from GE if the well existed at that time or not.  Dr. Zavadil's published dissertation is from 2012 - before the well was constructed.  

Perhaps she means some other well?  Her statement is important because she's suggesting that some of the stone used for this well, or some other, is spolia from that tholos.  But I cannot determine exactly why she thinks this.

[3] McDonald and Simpson [1969], p. 142.

Bibliography

Ålin [1962]: Ålin, Per, Das Ende der Mykenischen Fundstätten auf dem Griechischen Festland. Carl Bloms Boktryckeri A.-B., Lund, 1962.

[Boyd 2001]: Boyd, Michael J., Middle Helladic And Early Mycenaean Mortuary Practices In The Southern And Western Peloponnese.  np.  2001.

McDonald and Simpson [1961]: McDonald, William A. and Richard Hope Simpson. 1961.  ‘Prehistoric Habitation in Southwestern Peloponnese.’  American Journal of Archaeology. Vol. 65, No. 3 (Jul., 1961), pp. 221-260.  Sometimes referred to as ‘Messenia I’.

McDonald and Simpson [1969]: McDonald, William A. and Richard Hope Simpson. 1969. ‘Further Explorations in Southwestern Peloponnese: 1964-1968’.  American Journal of Archaeology. Vol. 73, No. 2 (Apr., 1969), pp. 123-177.  Sometimes referred to as ‘Messenia III’.

Zavadil [2012]: Zavadil, Michaela. Monumenta: Studien zu mittel- und späthelladischen Gräbern in Messenien.  Wien:Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Denkschriften. 2012.'

Using the Mycenaean Atlas Project - 2

The bibliography tables

Every site record in the Mycenaean Atlas database has at least one corresponding bibliographical record.  For example site C173, a ruined tholos in Triphylia which is sometimes called ‘Kamari: Gouva’, has four bibliographical entries to support its location:

1.  Simpson, [1981] 137, ‘F 209 Kamari: Gouva’

2.  Zavadil [2012] 411, ‘Kamari/Gouva (Ep. Triphylias)’

3.  Simpson and Dickinson [1979], 177, ‘D 236 Kamari: Gouva’

4.  McDonald and Rapp [1972], 298, ‘236 Kamari: Gouva’

This information is stored in the ‘fnb’ table.  Each record contains the following fields:

a.   Place Key (pk).  This is the unique identifying key for each location, here ‘C173’.

b.  Source (src). This is a symbol which indicates the specific work being quoted.  E.g., ‘S81’ for Simpson [1981].

c.   Page (page)

d.  Title (Title).  The nature of the gazetteer literature is such that every site is given an identifying paragraph with a number and title.  For example, Simpson [1981] describes Kamari: Gouva in the paragraph labelled ‘F 209 Kamari: Gouva’.

e.   Comment (Comment).  This field can be used if, for some reason, there is something unusual about the place description.  Ordinarily this field is null.

Only the src (source) field in ‘fnb’ needs to be explained.  In order to save space and cut down on typing the database contains another table, ‘biblio’, which holds the full information about each source.  For example Zavadil[2012] has a full entry in the biblio table.  When I refer to Zavadil[2012] from a site record, as here for C173, I give its name in the ‘fnb’ table simply as ‘Z’.  The biblio table contains the information for converting the symbol ‘Z’ into a full citation for Zavadil [2012].  So, to recap, the ‘fnb’ table contains all the bibliographic citations for each site.  The ‘biblio’ table contains the full information about each cited source.

The fields of the ‘biblio’ table are as follows:

a.   Source (src): the symbolic identifier for this specific book or article.  E.g., ‘Z’ for Zavadil [2012].

b.  Type of work (BType): ‘A’ for article, ‘B’ for book, ‘W’ for website.

c.   Short citation (ShortC): A short citation suitable for identifying the work in footnotes.  Here ‘Zavadil [2012]’.

d.  Long citation (LongC): A full citation of the work being cited.  Suitable for a bibliography.  Here:

 ‘Zavadil, Michaela. Monumenta: Studien zu mittel- und späthelladischen Gräbern in Messenien.  Wien:Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Denkschriften. 2012.’

e.   Comment (Comment): The comment field can be used to disambiguate the reference if that’s required.  Most often I have used it to hold an internet link if that points to the full book or article.

To retrieve all the bibliographic information in the fnb table for a specific site such as ‘C173’ you would do this:

select * from fnb where pk = ‘C173’;

That would return this:

pk, src, page, title, comment

'C173', 'S81', '137', 'F 209 Kamari: Gouva', NULL

'C173', 'Z', '411', 'KAMARI/GOUVA (EP. TRIPHYLIAS)', NULL

'C173', 'SD79', '177', 'D 236 Kamari: Gouva', NULL

'C173', 'M72', '298', '236   Kamari: Gouva', NULL

In order to retrieve all the bibliographic information in the fnb table for C173 and also convert the symbol used in the src field of the fnb record into a short citation from the biblio table you would do something like this.

SELECT a.pk,

    (SELECT shortc FROM biblio b WHERE b.src = a.src),

    a.page,

    a.title,

    a.comment

FROM fnb a WHERE a.pk = 'C173';

I've given this query a bit of formatting to show more clearly where the conversion from 'src' to 'shortc' takes place.

That query would return this:

pk, shortc, page, title, comment

C173, Simpson [1981], 137, F 209 Kamari: Gouva,

C173, Zavadil [2012], 411, KAMARI/GOUVA (EP. TRIPHYLIAS),

C173, Simpson and Dickinson [1979], 177, D 236 Kamari: Gouva,

C173, McDonald and Rapp [1972], 298, 236   Kamari: Gouva,

Here you see that all the src symbols in the first attempt are now converted to the short citation form.  E.g., ‘Z’ to ‘Zavadil [2012]’ or ‘S81’ to ‘Simpson [1981]’.

Here's a diagram that shows how the fnb table relates to the biblio table and that the shared key is the 'Src' field:

And finally, just for fun, perhaps you'd like a map that shows every site for which Zavadil [2012] is a contributing bibliographic source.

Here it is:

Places in messenia for which Zavadil is a contributing source in the bibliography tables.

The query I used is:

select a.pk, a.lat, a.lon, a.type, a.acc, a.region from 

       site a, 

       fnb b where 

                 a.pk = b.pk and 

                 b.src = 'Z';

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Anyone who would like to have a copy of the MAP database can send an e-mail to bobconsoli 'at' gmail.com or leave a comment on any of my posts.  To run the MAP database requires a SQL server running on your desktop computer.   MySQL is such a server and it is powerful, industry-standard, and free.  I will also make .kml files available to those who would like them.

If you like these posts then please follow me on Twitter (Squinchpix) or on Google+   (Robert Consoli)

Facebook?  Sorry.I.just.can't.

Bibliography

McDonald and Rapp [1972]: McDonald, William A. and George R. Rapp, Jr., The Minnesota Messenia Expedition: Reconstructing a Bronze Age Regional Environment, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota.  USA. 1972.

Simpson [1981]: Simpson, Richard Hope. Mycenaean Greece. Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1981.

Simpson and Dickinson [1979]:  Simpson, Richard Hope and O.T.P.K. 

Dickinson,  A Gazetteer of Aegean Civilization in the Bronze Age, Vol. I: The Mainland and the Islands, Paul Åströms Förlag, Goteborg. 1979.

Zavadil [2012]: Zavadil, Michaela. Monumenta: Studien zu mittel- und späthelladischen Gräbern in Messenien.  Wien:Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Denkschriften. 2012.